12.01.2011

Gnarled Oak

Since the release of our Coastal Knits book, it has been so fun for me to see all of the pictures of the book projects that many knitters have completed and shared on Ravelry. With the amazing selection of knitting patterns now available, I'm always so flattered when knitters decide to make something from a pattern that I've designed.

Out of all of the Coastal Knits patterns that I contributed to the collection, my favorite is the Gnarled Oak Cardigan. This design turned out exactly as how I had envisioned it.

I love knits with texture. The cable and oak leaf motif in this sweater yoke is fun to knit and really stunning with its embossed appearance.

This sweater was inspired by a very special location on my coastline.

An eerie, ancient forest of oak trees that are completely twisted and bent with age.

The kind of trees that you would think only exist in storybooks. I've never seen oaks like this anywhere else.

I am very attached to this particular location and knit, so when I saw another knitter's beautiful version pop up on Ravelry... I was thrilled.

This Gnarled Oak was knit up by Mary (dextermaine on Ravelry). Not only did she do a fabulous job on the knitting and take beautiful pictures.. but she chose a seriously gorgeous colorway as well!

Such a beautiful color for autumn.

As many of you already know, all of the Coastal Knits patterns are offered in a nice range of sizes. The Gnarled Oak Cardigan for example is available in sizes 32"- 61.5"

It was nice for me to see how my cardigan looks knitted up in a larger size than the sample pictured in the book. I think it fits her perfectly and looks wonderful. Thank you Mary for letting me share your photos.

I originally planned for this sweater to be worn with 0-2" of positive ease.. but in Hannah's latest blog post, she shows how cute the cardigan is worn with negative ease as well! Check out her photos here!

This cardi is darling - gotta love the texture and realistic features. And both models of the cardi are absolutely beautiful. The rest of us just wish we looked like that (in my dreams). I love both hairstyles.

I don't have the book yet, but looks like I need to put my hands on one.

I love Gnarled Oak.I'm on a yarn diet stash-busting quest and can't buy yarn until I knit 10 projects from cash. My next yarn acquisition will be yarn for this sweater. I hadn't thought about a fall color but it looks great in fall colors.